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MS VP Speech Online
mpawlo writes: "The widely debated Craig Mundie speech is now online." We tried not to run this, but there are too many submissions to ignore. Yes, much of what the guy says is nonsensical. Why not translate it into terms your boss can understand? For example, Mundie says forking code is bad. Here's the same thought translated into manager-speak: "Having multiple vendors competing to offer us the best product at the lowest price is worse than having one vendor who can sell the product to us at monopoly prices." Update: 05/03 8:19 PM by michael : Alan Cox has a response.
By your own admission, you agree with points 1 and 2:
* 1: Free software solutions are frequently a better alternative to the proprietary alternatives. * 2: Both users and devlopers benefit from access to source.
However, you disagree with point 3:
* 3: Community development is a superior method of development.
That makes no sense.. If it frequently creates better software than the alternatives and it is beneficial to both the developer and the end user, it would seem as though it is actually a better development model. Is it more cost effective in the long run? Maybe, maybe not, but Free Software isn't about cost, it's about benefit.
* 4: "Open Source" development is a superior way to run a profitable software business.
I've never even heard point four argued... I've seen it argued that it is a viable business model, but that's different than superiority. To be honest, the best business model I can think of is to monopolize something which everyone consumes and requires a minimum of investment to create and distribute.. You know, something like "intellectual property". I doubt anyone will argue that actually doing something (ie, offering a service) is superior to raking in cash for nothing..but which one favors the consumer?
* 5: Copyrights, trademarks and patents are all evil. I should be able to do anything I want.
Copyrights and patents are evil, but only if left unchecked. The danger isn't in not being able to share something someone else created, but rather, not being able to share what you've created. How long is it until you have to sign license agreements to even learn computer science? When will parody and criticism be finally wiped existence? At the current rate of tradepatentsecretcopymarking, not long..
shoeboy% strings FTP.EXE |grep Copy
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
Yep, nuff said.
Just how much needs to be copied for something to be a violation of IP laws? (and I recognize the answer might be different for copyright laws vs patent laws.) With the sheer gigantic volume of stuff that's been created over the years it's pretty much a guarantee that by random chance if I generate a small sentence that it matches some portion of some IP work somewhere. If I make up a guitar 'riff' of about 6-7 notes then by random chance it's probably already been done once in some song somewhere. And your hello world program was probably already done in just that way, with just those choices of variable names, at some random point in the past by some random person who may have put it under an IP law.
How does the IP law deal with this? As time goes on, does the ideaspace of possible new texts shrink noticably, or does the near-infinite size of the space make the problem irrelevant?
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
It seems to me that Microsoft does tend to abandon platforms frequently, and tends to force upgrades of programs where the new versions aren't available in some of the streams, which is essentially the same as abandoning the stream, although they may actually intend to release new versions eventually.
On the other hand, neither KDE nor Gnome will ever go away, not become unsupported, because the direction of the open source community as a whole is totally irrelevent; each of these has its own community, which prefers it, and which will continue to use and support it.
As evidence for this, I should mention that even much older and less popular alternatives continue to be supported. I'm now using fvwm, like I have been for the past 6 years, and it has continued to meet my needs and be supported despite the fact that it's mostly ignored by the rest of the world.
I realize it's hard to grasp. After all, this is Microsoft we're dealing with.
Code forking, by itself, is neither good nor bad. A code fork is a tool, nothing more. So, just like any tool, it can be used for both good and bad things. And just like tools, how they're used can be seen differently by different people. Someone forking code for frivolous reasons could be seen as making a "bad" code fork, whereas someone with strong technical reasons for forking the code could be seen as making a "good" code fork.
The fact that Microsoft says code forking is bad is meaningless. It's making a generalized statement. And, as you may be aware, generalizations are oftentimes either bad or outright irrelevant (this one included).
So, is code forking bad? No.
Is it good? No.
It simply is. It's the way that it's used that matters.
This is a common misconception. The good/badness of forking has always been debated. I am of the opinion that forks are very good. I have always hotly debated anyone who thinks they are evil. Code forks brought us egcs, OpenBSD, Samba 2.2, Apache (it's actually a fork from NCSA), PCMCIA kernel support (it got merged in in 2.4, but it existed as a "popular" fork of 2.2 for a while), Real-Time Linux, and probably a lot of other things I can't think of right now.
The _ability_ to fork also brings good things. For example, many people produce kernel "forks" which are small, but useful, until the given functionality gets rolled into the mainstream kernel. These mini-forks are really what give free software a competitive edge.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Oh good, so it'll be all over in a year or so. That means Linux should be gone by 1992 and Apache by 1996.
Oh, wait, reality check.
They ask software developers to give away for free the very thing they create that is of greatest value in the hope that somehow they'll make money selling something else.
We're not asking just anyone, only people who use our code. But that's not the point: apparently Microsoft thinks that giving something away of great value is bad. I'm such a bad person.
Didn't Microsoft give a away a web browser of great value in the hope that somehow they'll make money selling something else?
This viral aspect of the GPL poses a threat to the intellectual property of any organization making use of it. It also fundamentally undermines the independent commercial software sector because it effectively makes it impossible to distribute software on a basis where recipients pay for the product rather than just the cost of distribution.
Hm, you could argue that the GPL is some sort of customer lock-in. I'm glad Microsoft would never use such tactics! Or undermine the independent commercial software sector, Netscape is flourishing!
Shut up Microsoft. We never said that Free Software was the key to solving all the problems of the world. We just like the choice and freedom and wish to protect that freedom which companies such as Microsoft itself are trying to take away from us.
We like that better than money-hungry megacorporations who tells us what to do and what not to do. But indeed, we should understand that from your perspective, there's nothing wrong with those.
When the resulting software product is distributed, its creator must make the entire source code base freely available to everyone, at no additional charge. This viral aspect of the GPL poses a threat to the intellectual property of any organization making use of it.
Kudo's to the author for the clever linking of GPL with a negative tem like 'viral'. But is there really any serious business that decides to utilize some existing GPL'd codebase and does NOT understand the obligations in doing so? He makes it sound like a business extends existing code for a profitable venture and then suddenly realizes, "Oh God! We have to give up all our hard work!! Damn those OSS zealots!! They tricked us again!!"
Unlike the Msft attitude of "Windoze everywhere" and "why would anyone use anything else" - you don't have to use GPL code. Just write your own from a clean start - or just pay Msft or someone else.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
It is not public domain. It is the fully copyrighted work of the author who *allows* you to use it *under license.*
...
Actually, the GPL places no restrictions on *use* of GPLed code:
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted
Yahoo news has an interesting take on this. Its a pretty well-informed rebuttal of Microsoft's FUD.
...
--
I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations
And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.
Berke Breathed
One argument I've seen against Open Source before is "There's nobody to sue if it blows up and costs you thousands of dollars". And that's true for sure with the GPL, as it says, it comes with no warranty.
But insurance companies routinely insure against flooding, earthquakes (and these days even alien abduction). Are there any that will insure against Apache blowing up? If not, there should be. It would be a steal for them. Charge $20 a year that version XXX of Apache is insured against flaws YYY and ZZZ. This wouldn't include anything the administrator does to screw it up (like driver's insurance doesn't insure you if you trick out the brakes on your car). I'm sure the insurance rates would be far lower than the equivalent cost of buying IIS from Microsoft, and it would be a struggle to win a court case against Microsoft, whereas an insurer would have to pay out if you did nothing wrong.
Just an idea bubble.
Oh, and one more thing. All these people who talked about wanting to have someone to sue if things went bad -- why didn'tcha sue Microsoft when their faulty software allowed the various email virii to propagate? If that wasn't Microsoft's fault, what will be? Windows crashing? Word files getting corrupt? I personally can't recall anyone ever successfully suing MS over faulty software -- I can't even remember anyone trying...
If Microsoft was so ignorant of the Internet, then why was it a node on Usenet in 1981?
(See the map - here)
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
The reason they never complained is because Microsoft can freely use/abuse public domain software, incorporate it into their products or take ideas from it, and nobody can complain (after all, it's public domain).
If they try those same stunts with GPL, suddenly they're in violation of a license.
In other words, they don't have free reign over other people's inventions/work.
Which were paid by our taxes, so we should be able to use them without constraint.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Everything created by the Feds exists in the public domain, yes; but public domain works can be used in GPLed programs. For instance, there are a great number of public domain "Hello World" programs out there. For instance, this one, which I hereby donate to the public domain:
#include <iostream>
using namespace std::cout;
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
cout << "Hello World!" << endl;
return 0;
}
Now let's say that I want to write a piece of GPLed software, such as the following:
#include <iostream>
using namespace std::cout;
int sayHello(void)
{
cout << "Hello World!" << endl;
return 0;
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
return sayHello();
}
... As can be seen, the second GPLed piece of software uses a line of code that's in the public domain. This doesn't make the second piece of software non-GPLed; it just means that the line containing the cout statement is in the public domain and, once removed from the software, is still public domain and not GPLed.
I believed that Microsoft was just bleeding $$ but this indicates a more serious situation in Redmond.
Now, I just have to say:
Thank you Microsoft for giving us this free PR and credibility.
If anyone is still ignorant about the OSS movement, they will now feel the urge to find out what it's all about.
This is the most stupid move that Microsoft have ever done since it's just giving us even more attention.
Once again, thank you Microdoft we really needed this extra and free PR.
//Pingo
--- Linux or FreeBSD, it's like blondes or brunettes. I like both. ---
So I can get technical support from MS about Windows 3.0 driver I'm having problems with?
I don't think so.
Three things are certain: Death, taxes, and lost data. Guess which has occurred.
Thus, the modifications are public domain, even if it's not explicitly stated.
Of course, once incorporated into a GPL work, the work as a whole remains under the GPL.
------
Microsoft today unveiled details about the latest product line of software geared to dominate the enterprise market. Aptly named "Closed Source Code 2000", Microsoft is marketing the product to compete with GPL, and BSD based Open Source
products that have capitalized a substantial market share.
"By continuing to create pre-compiled, closed source executables, we see a great demand for revenue, and a large portion of the open source market making the switch to CSC2000. Its just hip to have the words "Source" in your products. So amidst all the confusion and bickering surrounding the licensing amongst the Open Source community, we are kind of sneaking by delivering high quality
products in the same fashion as we always have, but we've made it more hip by incorporating the words "Source Code" in our products, we will
guarantee 100% market share by 2021." stated LeRoy Jones V.P. of Marketing.
As usual we are the first to report the news in its entirety so here are the terms of Microsoft's CSC2000 licensing.
continued
Nobody expects the GBonic Inquisition.
Want Root?
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
We tried not to run this, but there are too many submissions to ignore.
How many is too many? I have 100 friends and some stories about my website, my hobbies, my cat...
The Good Reverend
I'm different, just like everybody else.
Giving away your code for free, or even letting other people copy your code is usually NOT a viable business model. Microsoft does not develop custom projects.
Using an 'open' license does not force you to give your code away for free.
Have you taken the time to read the GPL (as an example of a open license)? It says that you can charge for the pleasure of distributing your code.
If you don't like the GPL, then write your own - the NineNine License.
Admittedly I've never charged people to download my software, (distribution is ~2c/download, most was written because I wanted it), but I do get paid because of it. Take for example Clatter. Because of it I landed a job with an company friendly to open licenses and I've been paid to support my software.
-dB
"It if was easy to do, we'd find someone cheaper than you to do it."
Bzzzt. WRONG. If you are the author you're perfectly free to relicense the same software under a non-GPL license and demand $$$ in return. Trolltech does that with Qt.
This "you can't reuse your own software" nonsense is the kind of bald-faced LIE M$ will be feeding upon the PHB's of the world. We need to be around to give them the Truth instead.
Like IBM?
offering them? Selling them you mean
Like creating stable OSes*cough* *cough*
I don't see how that is an asset of Shared Source(TM) So, having 2 separate programs sprouting from a single program, both having the same basic functionality but different advanced functionalities is a bad thing? I know I prefer having the choice between 2 or more programs, that way I can pick whichever is most suited to my task. But well, let's take the arguments one by one:
- multiple incompatible version of program.
Yes, that's called "having the choice".
- weakened interoperability.
then again, that's 2 different programs, so no inter-operability is needed, else the 2 set of features would have ended up in the same program (unless they are antagonists, and in that case, you anyway have to pick one).
- product instability.
Huh?!? Why does forking induce instability?
- inherent security risks.
Since when has obscurity meant security? Sounds like bugs that are visible by many an eye are more likely to be seen than otherwise.
Don't want your code to be released under the GPL? Don't use GPL'ed code in the first place. The GPL doesn't prevent people from charging for the product at all. (agreed it might not be very efficient) They don't ask to give it away for free, and no one forces developers to develop OSS or GPL'ed Software. *cough* *cough* Kerberos *cough* *cough* And, needless to say, the fruits of the labour of others upon which the later work is based. If you do'nt want to share your work, don't use the work others shared.
Blah, enough wasted time reading M$ propaganda. Back to code...
One shall speak only if what one has to say is more beautiful than silence
I don't think that assessment is wholly accurate. Let's assume that whatever code that is produced under gov't contract is available to any and all. Now suppose that GPL is not used. The code is available to all. It is not 'walled off.'
Now a company takes this code and begins selling it. That's no good, since people can get it for free.
So the company takes the code, adds to it, sells that version, but doesn't release their new version of the code. What has been taken from the public? Nothing. The original, tax-payer funded code is still available. But the new, corporately funded changes are not. But those were never the people's to begin with, so nothing is lost.
So, it's not clear to me that GPL'ing gov't projects adds security to the public's access to it's 'own' code. And it could be argued that this would hinder the transfer of research from the gov't realm to the private realm, since companies will be less eager to utilize work that then hinders and/or destroys their business model.
Just some thoughts...
-----
D. Fischer
ShoutingMan.com
Adapt or die.
Given the nature of the organizations you just mentioned, you should probably amend that to "Adapt, die, or sue".
From hell's heart I fstab at /dev/hdc
You can make a tremendous amount of money even if you sell a highly visible product at a loss - sell a profit-making complement too.
Gllette spent millions developing the Mach 3 razor and sells each one at less than 20% of the manufacturing price. They make money selling replacement blades above cost. It works, its worked for decades.
RedHat sells RH Linux below cost ($0). But compared to Windows, it's cheap to develop - you take other people's innovations, add a few, and package it in a useable format. Then you sell services above cost - no OS is so easy to use that there are no support issues. RH Linux is a loss-leader to get people to establish a relationship with the company. It would make sense that if I need high-level support for RH Linux, I would turn to RedHat, since they know the product better than anyone esle. IBM has the same business model now - they want to sell you a complete Linux solution - they've largely given up on PCs to be a services company.
This sounds stupid, but service/support is a better business than proprietary software. All of your costs are marginal - if you sell n hours of support for $r/hr and you pay $e/hr to the support guy, you make n(e-r) dollars, which is always a positive number if e>r. Software costs d dollars to develop, where d is a very fucking large number. If n people buy it a cost c, you make (n*c - d). This can be negative if not enough people buy your product. This is a gross oversimplification, there's overhead in support, and some neglible marginal costs in selling software, but this is why there are so many little support shops - you don't need to invest a tremendous amount of cash upfront.
Microsoft is one of the few large companies on the face of the earth whose only product is proprietary consumer software. Oracle, IBM, Apple, you name it, all sell something else besides software - consumer software is a ridiculously risky business. They've managed to succeed by becoming a monopoly and essentially forcing people to buy their products. They used illegal pricing games to drive the competition out of business - offering "competitive upgrades" on competitetors products, giving away IE, breaking cross-platform compatibility and so forth. They can't use the same strategy against Linux because you can't undercut it on price, so they've resorted to their other famous tactic, FUD.
They're startups, they're supposed to lose money initially. Startups succeed when you go from losing money to breaking even to turning a profit. They fail when they lose more and more money. Redhat is breaking even, which means their revenue is rising faster than their costs and we can assume they'll proceed on to profitability. Microsoft is making money, but making less every year. Their costs are rising faster than their revenue. Factor in their impending breakup, dozens of lawsuits getting thrown at them, and a few other things, and their long-term outlook isn't very good.
Also, he seems to deliberately confuse free (speech) with free (beer), probably as a subtle way of cultivating FUD about the viability of Linux vendors. You know, because your company's chosen Linux services vendor - say, IBM - could go under any day now.
Whatever.
I'm fortunate to work in a place where the management is technically inclined, and will laugh this off like the desperate raving that it is. I have to wonder what sort of effect this has on suits who don't know any better, though. Has someone like ESR put up a response yet?
OK,
- B
--
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
From the speech: Furthermore, it (Open Source Software) has inherent security risks and can force intellectual property into the public domain.
As opposed to Microsoft's approach to security documented here (Article from the Registry: "Microsoft tells U.S. Air Force to bug off).
With an attitude like this, he has no basis what so ever in talking about security risks!
-----------------
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
We tried not to run this, but there are too many submissions to ignore.
Can we have a pool, Dad? Can we have a pool, Dad? Can we have a pool, Dad? Can we have a pool, Dad? Can we have a pool, Dad? Can we have a pool, Dad? ... and so forth.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
To play devil's advocate a moment, "a vendor that's guaranteed to be around in 10 years" sounds good to a manager too.
But if there was no intellectual property (IP) law, the GPL would not be *needed*. All code would be free for everyone to use. That's the whole point of the GPL -- to make software free for everyone to use as they wish. The GPL is just a trick to use IP law against itself. It creates nearly the same situation that would exist if there were no IP law. The only 2 exceptions I can think of are that GPL code cannot be mixed with closed-source code (evening the playing field for itself) and that the source must be easily obtained (without IP, it could be hidden, but you could still "steal" the original source or reverse engineer it).
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
But now Microsoft says code forking is bad, so that means it is really good?
No, it's still bad. It just that Microsoft is claiming that Open Source is responsible for code forks.
Ironically, this is about as far as you can get from the truth while still being slightly based in it. You see, without access to source code, you can't have a code fork. What's there to fork if only the one party controls the code? However, to say that Open Source causes code forks is ridiculous.
You see, without the release of the original AT&T V7 source code to UNIX, there could have never been forks in the UNIX code base. What happened is that each proprietary UNIX vendor decided to add missing features to their systems to encourage people to buy their hardware. Without adding nifty new features to UNIX that other vendors didn't have, you didn't have as compelling a reason for customers to buy your hardware. Once you got them used to your API's you got to sit back and enjoy vendor lock-in. It was the lack of cooperation between vendors and their unwillingness to give their additions back to the community that led to the forking of UNIX.
Nowdays, in the BSD worlds, you still have code forks over political/philosophical differences. These led to the FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD camps. The difference between what happened to the commercial UNIXes and the modern BSDs is that the modern BSDs can take advantage of what their rivals have done! While there is different focus in what they are improving, each group gives its contributions back to the whole BSD community. This means that security audits in OpenBSD can turn up flaws that can be patched in FreeBSD. New ports done by NetBSD often turn into the basis of new OpenBSD ports. Heck, even Darwin may have contributed a good HFS+ filesystem layer that the others can adapt.
Microsoft is also being a huge hypocrite whenever they talk about code forking. Hello? Windows 95/98/ME vs. NT/2000? Oh, and there's Windows XP/2002 now -- a professional vs. consumers product fork in grand NT tradition. If you've ever once looked through MSDN, you've probably seen the functional documentation about how this or that function does one thing on 95, another thing on 98, and yet another thing on NT. Don't even get me started on WinCE, either. Microsoft is the pot calling the kettle black. However, since the forking of UNIX has long been one of it's greatest derided problem, and since most people aren't really aware of the differences between Windows versions under the hood, they can get away with it.
That's what irritates me most about this. MS is completely misrepresenting the truth. It's not that code forking is suddenly good because MS is demonizing it. It's that the situation isn't as bad as it once was, it's that it isn't that different from their own products, and it's that it was the commercial interests that caused the problem in the first place.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Let me get this straight. We tried not to run this, but there are too many submissions to ignore. Tried not to run this? So it's all right to post a preview of a speech, along with ESR's preemptive strike against it, but there's no need for another post once the speech is given? At least Slashdot readers know a big story merits hearing from both sides. Too bad the Slashdot crew is clueless in that regard.
Also, the government using the GPL is completely correct because it was paid for through tax money. Saying that it is "walling if off from commercial business" is a half truth. It is mandating that commercial business may not wall it off from the people that paid for it.
t
But now Microsoft says code forking is bad, so that means it is really good?
One thing from this article, and others that gripe about the GPL, is the basic fact that GPL'ed code doesn't go where it isn't wanted. Microsoft clearly isn't speaking about its own business practices when they warn against the GPL - they've obviously been staying away from it so far. What they're doing is using their weight, their influence, to warn companies away from supporting the GPL.
The GPL is very easily avoided. Yes, it's viral - if a license can be considered 'viral.' It does 'infect' the derivative works. That's what it's for. Microsoft is right when it says that this makes it more difficult to sell products - and certainly if a product can't be sold, it could be viewed as 'removing incentive.' (Odd that such a phrase, commonly used to argue against higher taxes, would be used to argue against reducing the so-called "software tax.")
But, as others have touched on, GPL'ed code isn't forcing itself down the throats of commercial developers. No one is forcing anyone to take the metaphorical hypodermic full of GPL. Think you can make a better grep, and sell it? Fine. Provde it. But don't use GNU grep code without giving back.
More importantly, it should be noticed that Microsoft objects to GNU software because it takes a price - a price that is paid to the community at large, not to a specific individual or company. GNU software may not charge for anything besides the distribution costs (not that it couldn't!) but it does charge you with the responsibility to give back.
These are things we all know. Microsoft isn't willing to pay that price. The so-called Shared Source is an attempt to appease the desires whetted by the OSS movement. No one is allowed to give back to the community once they look at this source code.
The biggest shame in this whole situation is that Slashdot may be the most public place for OSS and Free Software advocates to respond to these nonsenses.
I just got through reading Mundie's comments all the way through. I found little if anything with which to disagree.
"Having multiple vendors competing to offer us the best product at the lowest price is worse than having one vendor who can sell the product to us at monopoly prices."
You are looking at things through Slashdot colored glasses. Mundie wasn't referring to monopoly vendors or even competing vendors offering products implementing the same standard. He was referring to competing vendors all trying to push slightly different standards, with no clear winner. Interoperability is a costly problem. Transferring files between Macs and PCs causes problems all the time, and that's just two platforms.
Most importantly, Mundie stood up for independant developers. There is one fault I can find here. I think reducing or eliminating the cost of MS development tools would be much more beneficial to independant developers than revealing source. I would much rather get MSVC 7.0 for the price of the CD than look at source code that belongs to MS.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
This story was, so I just replied to it and attached my message. I really do not sit around hoping a story like this gets posted. :)
(Moderators, mod this down if you wish, I don't care, but you are better off modding up more useful articles)
--
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
For example, the original purposes of the mental health industry were to help government and big business control populations and to control markets. The classic historical example of this is Nazi Germany.
After the war, many companies wanted to make use of the techniques to improve their markets, politicians wanted to advance their causes etc, all taking a page or two for the Nazi play book. But they did not want the stench of the association.
Now we all know that these are honorable men, and that these end goals of control and manipulation have been set aside by the vast majority of governments and organizations around the world.
But here and there we see a hint of the old technique. You redefine the word. You include just enough of the truth, and twist it with a lie, that it requires a sophisticated understanding to spot what is wrong.
to quote Hitler (full chapter here): given variously as (depending on translation:" ... all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan." (or alternatively) "... an effective propaganda has to limit itself to just a few points and must keep repeating them in the form of catch phrases for as long as it takes to have ascertained that even the very last person understands under these words what one wants him to understand." The full chapter makes fascinating reading, especially when comparing it to MS Marketing FUD and tactics.
Ultimately a lie *will* backfire, however, because people see through it and hate you for it. It may take a while, a long time.
Therefore the best PR campiagn is not based in lies, but is uses real truths.
But the MS marketroids resort to twisting and distorting the facts
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
From the speech: "Despite the demonstrable success of the computing industry and the IP-based economy, and the clear failure of newer firms that gave away products for free"
;)
Yes, MS has been quite smart about not giving software away for free!
Well, except for that whole Internet browser thing.
And Outlook Express.
And perhaps a bunch of little utilities that come with the OS
Oh, and all those fonts and clipart from their website.
Hmm... what was MS saying about the folly of giving away IP freely?
-----
D. Fischer
ShoutingMan.com
Somebody was sitting around with the ctrl key already pressed and just waiting for Slash to post a MS story... =)
My .02,
My .02,
zencode
iactivist.org/jason
The primary point of this article is that Microsoft is simply saying that they need to maintain a viable business model. Giving away your code for free, or even letting other people copy your code is usually NOT a viable business model. Microsoft does not develop custom projects. They develop general use products for the public. If they were to release the source code for Windows, there'd be absolutely no reason for anybody to buy Windows, period. It could easily be re-copied, and re-packaged. They're NOT in the custom software business, so while companies like RedHat can make a tiny bit of money (and I do mean Tiny) from doing some custom projects, Microsoft is not structured like this. They DO sell the exact same software to millions of people. It makes no sense, whatsoever for Microsoft to open source their products. That's all this article is about.
That's a bit specious, considering that software developed by the government is required to be public domain. Does that mean the NSA's mods are not GPL, but Public Domain?
The Public Domain nature of taxpayer-funded development of software is why TCP/IP is an open protocol. Funny how Microsoft has never complained about the Public Domain aspect of government-developed software, but the GPL gets them hysterical...
---dragoness
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't this part added in a much more recent edition of Gates' book? Even in 1995, Gates viewed the Internet and the World Wide Web as nonentities.
-A.P.
--
Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
What you fail to realize is that the whole concept of copyright protection is something that the governement/people gives to businesses so that the people will benefit. Not so that companies can benefit -- that's just the means to the end. Microsoft is implying that the government needs to protect the means, even if the end is no longer being achieved. But that doesn't make sense to the people unless there is some benefit the people will get. But Free Software already provides that benefit.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
I've wondered how the NSA (as well as Becker's drivers) can put stuff under the GPL. Without Copyright, there is no GPL. But the Federal Government can not get copyright protection. Everything produced by the Feds exists under the public domain.
I can imagine that a GPL project can incorporate stuff from the public domain (just as commercial software can), but I can't see how things like Becker's drivers alone or NSA patches can be GPLed. MS ought to be free to use any of that code in any way they see fit.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
They're NOT in the custom software business, so while companies like RedHat can make a tiny bit of money (and I do mean Tiny) from doing some custom projects, Microsoft is not structured like this.
This is true. However, no where are Microsoft, the members of the RIAA, the members of the MPAA, or any other enterprise ever given the guarantee that the business model that they have freely chosen will always be profitable. Times change. Technologies change. Markets change. Adapt or die.
Change and progress are good. They wash away the dead wood institutions in our society, while vital ones adapt and prosper.
How to fight this? Explain that the GPL puts no restriction on the use of the software. If you can get GPL software you are free to use it as you see fit. The only things the GPL restricts are copying, distribution and modification.
On the other hand Commercial software, especially Microsoft software has harsh limits on how it can be used. Hence the term "End User License Agreement". Tell 'em they'll never have to click through one of those for an Open Source product.
Next mention that the only way you'll be affected by the GPL is if you want to copy, distribute or modify GPL software. You can use a GPLed editor like GNU Emacs on a GPLed system like Linux to write proprietary software if that's what you want to do. If you're not writing software that links with or uses GPLed code, selling or giving away GPLed software you don't have to worry.
Explain that when Microsoft's code leaves their building it's "hands off". You can look, but you can't touch or even show other people. Their "shared source software" is at best a learning tool for other people. At worst it's a means of trying to get cheap student labour to find and fix their bugs for them.
As for standards, explain that Microsoft is infamous for embracing a standard then extending it so that nothing works with it. Explain that this would be fine if it weren't for their monopoly which basically makes an open standard into a Microsoft standard. Tell them that by its very nature, Open Source software is open standard. If you want to know how something works, just look at the source.
Finally explain that the only reason Bill Gates and Microsoft can give so much money away is that they've made such obscene profits on their software. Explain how if an Open Source company were on 95% of desktops it would never have that kind of power because everything it made would be open and freely available. Explain how many eyes make bugs shallow. Then say "if you love something, set it free". *grin*
Any other suggestions?
Frankly, it doesn't much matter to me whether MicroSquish code is ever available under an Open Source license. Mozilla has shown us that opening your source code doesn't necessarily make for a better product.
What's wrong with windoze, is not that I can't read the source. What's wrong with it is that it's unreliable, unsecurable, incompetently designed, and bloated as all get-out.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I'm inclined to agree with Microsoft and my objection is with the people who invoke Perl and BSd to defend Eazel and Napster.
Alright, what the heck does Napster have to do with ANY of this?? Napster wasn't open source, and don't you dare make the arguement that it operates like open source. With Napster, users download copywrited material and share it with others. With OSS, programmers share their own work and creations with their peers for them to improve and use how they wish. I don't see how they are similar what-so-ever. In ESR's editorial on this very speech he warned that he would try to group OSS, Napster, and software piracy under the same heading. I personally don't understand MS's objection to the GPL, except that they can't take the code and sell it. This "viral" activity of the GPL is only a problem to companies who wish to exploit the code. If everything was distributed under the BSD license, MS would be happy as can be, they would just keep taking the code as they needed and marketing it as their own.
John
We all go a little mad sometimes.... haven't you?
They also gloss over the fact that if you write original (not derived from any other product) code and release it with a GPL license, you're absolutely free to license it out to someone else under a different license. If a company wants to use it in a proprietary product, they can come and offer you a shitload of money for you to allow them to do so.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Linus, as usual, used his own metaphors, to enlighten the press and non-geeks. IOW, he simplified my question, de-jargoned it and answered it plainly and honestly. His metaphor was a tree with branches, and that brought up the 'splinter' comment.
What wasn't reported in the article, was how he ended his answer, and I clearly remember this: That was also the year I recognized why I admired and supported the OSS movement.
When Gates was done with his speech, he was hustled off-stage by an army of handlers and into a waiting limo, looking neither left nor right, and interacting with none of his so-valued cutomers.
When Linus was done, he and his wife and children hung around the show floor. His wife pushed the stroller around, and, despite the press and admirers, he kept his focus on them. After the show floor closed, there was a gathering sponsored by one of the early Linux companies. Linus was there with his wife and kids. They mingled for about two more hours, then someone suggested Buster's for video games and more beers.
In contrast to Gates, his handlers and the limos, the last I saw of Linus that night, he was piling with his wife and kids into a mini-van, on their way to Busters', with mad-dog and a bunch of geeks (Can I bum a ride? situational carpool).
NO MATTER HOW GATES AND COMPANY SPIN IT, _THAT'S_ THE TRUE SPIRIT OF OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE....and that's why we will win, AND THEY WILL LOSE.
Hell, they already have.
Remember guys, this is Amerika. Just because you have the most votes, doesn't mean you get to win.--Fox Mulder
I didn't have a huge problems with the first half, other than a few veiled hints at where the article was going. I did get a chuckle when I read the paragraph talking about .net.
Now, they start moving on to the negative points of OSS. Not that I don't think OSS has it's problems. In some of these places I think microsoft may have some points - but they often exaggerate them or extend them to places where I don't think they are applicable. Some things they say:
Unhealthy forking that leads to incompatability. At first, I thought "This is stupid, it doesn't happen". But in one way it does. Look at the different releases of redhat. A program compiled for RH 7.1 most likely won't work with redhat 6.2. Now, I don't call this "forking" as much as I would call it "Upgrading". Microsoft has exactly the same problems with their operating system upgrades as well though. The difference is, when you upgrade an operating system or one software component, often you have to upgrade others. With OSS it's easy, get the source and recompile. With MS it costs money. His point on the GPL and including other peoples code is ridiculous. I'm glad he gets his information on licensing of the GPL technically correct, but what he is complaining about is just silly. In the proprietary world you can't include someone elses proprietary code in your program and release it, right? So why would he even care that he can't take GPL code and include it in his proprietary code? Whats the point here? If you want your code to be proprietary, just write it all yourself. To those who write and release proprietary code, GPL code is nothing more than "someone elses proprietary code". Now him saying "The viral aspect of the GPL poses a threat to the intellectual property of any organization making use of it" is just plain FUD. Sure, if you take the damn code and use it in your code, it affects you. If you just use GPL software as 'end-user' software, you have no problems.
They talk about open source business model being support or hardware oriented. They claim that it will fail due to the falure of similar attempts earlier by other companies that are support or hardware specific. For sure he can't be talking abut SUN (who still makes a great amount of money by selling hardware and developing enterprise quality operating systems). This model does work. But the good thing about OSS is that it is not tied to a company. It existed before the companies sprung up to support it and it will exist even if some or many of the companies die. It will always provide a valuable product to the community and end-users who rely on the product. When companies like microsoft die, you are stuck with a pile of binary garbage that will never be maintained, upgraded or fixed.
Ok, their real point here is that mass-marketed products tend to not do so well with either of these models. I think Microsoft may be partially right here. For example, selling PC games (not online type games) will never work in a "support" model, nor would it work in a "hardware business model" either. The only way to really support cool single-user games that require lots of R&D, quick development times to be competative, etc is to support them by paying customers. This is why I think the number and types of free games doesn't even come close to the numbers and quality of commercial games.
Free software is better suited for cool apps that have longer development cycles, like a word processor, or operating system. Things that aren't "completely redone" every few months like computer games are. Ok, maybe even computer games will start slowing down once we achieve near-realistic graphics and people can focus primarily on content. But for some reason or another, I think the game industry still has quite a bit of evolution to go through though.
Microsoft's primary business model is *not* games though. It is Operating Systems and Office Applications. Given time, and number of upgrades, I believe OSS products WILL catch microsoft products. Right now microsoft does have the lead in end-user software such as word-processors. Already, we notice that micorsoft is digging and clawing for new ideas to "differentiate" or give a "competative advantage" to their products over others. The failed "Paperclip" is one example of an attempt to differentiate office from other products. The question is, how long can microsoft continue to justify paying more and more money to upgrade their apps? Microsoft themselves know this is a dead-end. This is why they created ".NET"! There's no need to force people to upgrade if they pay monthly fees. If they can change the thought process of the users that "Users don't own software" "Users buy a service", their business will live into the future.
--
Twivel
Open-Source is a threat to Microsoft's business model and, as a business, Microsoft is making the decision to attack its biggest threat. This will include exaggerations, leaps in reasonings, and a lot of FUD. The important concept to take away from today's meeting is that Microsoft is *very* smart. They understand open-source. They understand the weaknesses of the open-source community. And they are attacking them with full force.
Gathering thoughts from a few open-source hackers at this meeting today, it seems Microsoft is leading a 3-pronged attack:
What Microsoft is doing is simple: they are taking away the easy open-source arguments, and muddling the complex ones. Whether you think their message rings true or not is irrelevant: they are making a solid marketing case. The Open-Source community had better be ready to respond.
Before I begin, I should point out that open source means different things to different people. I will assume that Microsoft is talking about Open Source that meets the Open Source Definition. That is, the source code must be freely available. The software must be freely redistributable. Other users must be allowed to modify this code and distribute them under the same license. Note that there is no limit on charging for distribution, though specific open source licenses may indeed prevent this. Also, once you have distributed the binaries, you must also distribute the source if requested.
Microsoft points out that open source often leads to forking of the code base. This is indeed sometimes true. However, shared source/commercial source does not prevent this. Witness Microsoft's operating systems. Windows CE, Windows 9x (including ME), and Windows 2000. In fact, Windows 2000 is perhaps even a clearer example of a code fork as it is available in at least four different binary versions (Windows 2000 Professional, Server, Advanced Server, and Dataserver), each with a slightly different code base. Even ignoring this, each one of Microsoft's operating systems shares a common lineage, MS DOS, though Microsoft has sometimes started fresh.
The viral nature of the GPL, the Gnu Public License, is the next thing Microsoft takes issue with. They point out that once software is licensed under the GPL, all derived software is also so licensed. This is absolutely true and is certainly something that companies need to be aware of. However, there is a flip side to this argument. Say I write a new browser and release all the source code under the GPL. Now, my intellectual property is protected in the event that a company comes along, takes my source code and makes minor modifications and then sells it for $250 a piece. Saying that the GPL is a threat to intellectual property implies that the GPL abhores intellectual property and this is certainly not the case.
Microsoft also points out that the GPL undermines commercial software development. This is somewhat true. If I GPL a word processor, I am quite unlikely to be able to sell thousands of copies of it because anyone who purchases a copy can turn around and distribute it for free. However, Microsoft seems to be ignoring one thing. The majority of software developed for profit is developed for specific customers. Programmers or development houses are contracted to develop a specific solution for a specific customer. This customer then pays for the delivery of the software. Open source software (and indeed, GPL'ed software) does not affect this proven business model at all. The only problem would be that the customer could then freely redistribute the software or modify it without paying the developer. This essentially prevents the developer from selling the exact same software to another customer.
This is important. Please note that open source software does not require that you give your software away for free. You are quite free to develop it for a significant price, making all your profit from this development. Microsoft seems to ignore this.
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Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
And indeed that many OSS people seem to only be vaguely aware of, is that the GPL *depends* on intellectual property law to function.*
It is not public domain. It is the fully copyrighted work of the author who *allows* you to use it *under license.*
It is no more viral than the commercial license which seeks to 'infect' your pocketbook. Over, and over, and over again.
The GPL 'infects' your code by allowing you to take is WITHOUT financial recompense, which it would be perfectly within the rights of the author to demand, and asks only that if you modify the code to give those modifications back under the same terms that you obtained the original code * for free.*
Noone holds a gun to your head and tells you to use GPL code. If you don't like the terms of the license, don't take the code. Just as some say about commercial licenses. If you don't want to pay for it, don't use it.
GPL code HAS a pay structure. Don't dance if you don't want to pay the piper, who in this case is only asking to be allowed at the banquet table.
The irony is that MS is bashing a license that is * totally in keeping* with its own from a legal standpoint, and only exists BECAUSE of such intellectual property laws as protect MS's rights.
If the GPL destroyed intellectual property it couldn't, itself, exist.
KFG
Sound anything like, oh say, IE?!
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
All in all, I found what was said to be rather accurate, and it is interested to see Microsoft moving itself towards a Shared Source model. 2 years ago, I never saw any source. I found it kind of humerous that they included their "samples" as a significant contribution of source code, and that they boasted that "100 universities" had the source code. But all in all, it was rather rational.
This is coming from a guy who volunteered for the GNU booth at LISA (sysadmin conference), writes GPL'ed software at home, advocates Free and Open Source software at work, and teaches free classes on programming twice a week in his free time. Honestly, this article seems like a nice concise representation of the issues that we are facing in the technical world, and the licensing tradeoffs as well. It is a remarkably centered piece, especially considering that it's coming from Microsoft. Maybe it's coming from their Biz department, rather than Marketting.
However, I wouldn't take the article as a sign of the impending doom or non-use of GPL'ed software. As another /. reader said, it's good to view GPL'ed and OpenSource software as software belong to a single company (GNU?), namely, the company consisting of all contributors.
I believe quite strongly that Free and OpenSource software will overcome Microsoft.
First, the very thing that allowed Linux to exist in the first place, the life blood of Free/OpenSource Software, namely, communication, is becoming cheaper and easier. We are watching a bandwidth and connection revolutions. As barriers to communication come down, the success of Free and OpenSource software will increase.
Second, as more and more people become involved in the computing world (and they are coming, they are definitely coming- just look overseas) and the online world, the # of Free and OpenSource developers will increase. I believe that our numbers as Free/OS software developers are, and will, increase faster than the # of employees at Microsoft.
That KDE and GNOME (particularly KDE) would cease development because OS/Free software isn't a viable business model would be a faulty conclusion. KDE is not a business. Go to the KDE web page and tell me that they're running a business. It's very clearly a community.
We can build our own operating system, and as developers, it's just sort of our nature to do so.
Anyways, Kudo's to MicroSoft for a well written summary, and a "Yay" if they actually follow through on their commitment to share their source.
Back to my side of the fence: Yay KDE! Yay GNOME!
I think is what Mundie is trying to announce. Of course their 'Shared Source' is a load of crap, but I get the hint that Microsoft is truly starting to realize that a lot of their potential developer base gets more serious systems development done with OSS tools and libraries. They're trying to treat the Open Source philosiphy the same way they treated Java. Embrace Open Source and 'fix' it, until it benefits Microsoft.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
By making the source under glass more readily available, is MS undermining a persons ability to work on open source projects.
If more people are allowed to see the source does this increase the likely hood of IP litigation if programmer X has been in the vicinity of MS source and later works on an open source project?